Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-07-15
UNLUCKY BUILDINGS.
HOUSES NOTED FOR FIRES, SUI
CIDES AND OTHER CAlAmlTlES.
Tenements Which, for No Apparent
Cause, Are Sure to Make Trouble for
Both Owners and Tenants-A Hoo
dooed" House.

II am not superstitious, as q general rule"
said Liberty street real estate dealer. as he
cr1ised about the exchange looking for un-
wary buyers the other day, "but in the course
of twenty years experience in renting and
selling property in New York, have noticed
things that it seemed impossible to explain
except by luck or fate. There are some
buildings in this city, which for no apparent
cause are as sure TO make trouble for their
owners and tenants as the sun is to shine.
No amount OF care or prudence viii make
them profitable, while buildings right next to
them, which are neglected by owners and
abused by tenants viii be lucky all the time
There is building on Church street where
a suicide has occurred once in every twelve
months for years. It is a good building,
light, well constructed, desirable in every
way, but you can't get half the rents for it
that YOU can in the next building, because it
has the reputation Of being what people who
use slang call 'hoodoo,' and every tenant
who goes into it is haunted by the fear that
ne is going to fail or be burned out, or lose
bis mother-in-law. It's all on account Of
those suicides They have given it a bad
name, and that's a thousand times harder TO
drive out of q house than rats.
81 know tenement house on the east side
that is given over to fires. The landlord has
made the most extraordinary efforts TO pre-
vent them, hired watchmen, put in fire proof
ing, automatic alarms, kept the police on the
alert, but fires are the rule in that house, and
now you can scarcely hire people to live in
it. 1t isn't incendiarisrn. I suppose it's what
cool, scientific people would call mere coinci-
dence, but most persons would say it was
luck The house is 'hoodooed in the minds
Of tenants, anyway.
UNDESIRABLE TENANTS.
There are some houses which none but I'M
desirable tenants viii occupy in spite Of
everything you can do. I know man who
recently came into possession Of a fine build
ing not q stones throw from this exchange,
which had been given up to rag lofts in spite
OF the efforts of the former owner to get them
out. He spent more than $40, 600 in fixing
uD the building, made over the rooms into
handsome offices, put in an elevator and
made the rents low. The building is in a
locality for Office renters, and in short time
it was full of desirable tenants. The man
congratulated himself on his foresight and
wisdom In month one tenant failed. an
other skipped TO Canada, another e.oped with
his landlady. The signs came down. the peo-
pie went out, and in year the rag lofts were
back again. | don't know how to explain it,
but you couldn't make money out OF that
building to save your life. On the next cor
ner was building not half as good or desir
able in any way and the owner was clearing
ing more than 50. 600 year from It.
One Of the most expensive buildings on
lower Broadway is supposed to be hoooooed.'
by the fact that part of the land it stands on
is owned by an old miser who won't sell. but
eXacts au c-l-rE.Ous rate foT the lease. Any
LAY, there are more failures in that building
than in any other on the street; tenants are
continually turning out to he defdClters, the
elevator is continually falling on somebody.
people are always tumbiing down stairs and
breaking their limbs, children drop out Of the
windows, signs slip from their places, the
steam heating apparatus is perpetually out Of
order, and the owner has worried himself 70
a fieshless bone-New York Mall and Ex-